City rips up school's new sidewalk to plant saplings

Courtesy of City Councilman James OddoParks Department crew broke up cement in front of PS 54, Willowbrook, and later planted trees not at the curb but right against fence. City Councilman James Oddo, pictured, got an apology but not a promise to remove the trees. STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- At first, Principal Anna Castley was confused when she heard workers drilling the sidewalk in front of PS 54. Her confusion turned to anger when she ran outside and asked the city Parks Department workers to stop — and they refused.

The workers were planting trees. Nothing wrong with that, Ms. Castley said, but they were planting them in an odd place. Rather than near the curb, the workers were putting the trees against the fence of the school on Willowbrook Road.

She’d have been happy to have the trees on the school’s green property, just inside the fence, had the workers only asked, Ms. Castley said.

To compound the injury, the concrete that was being torn up was fairly new — it had been laid in front of the school in September by city workers.

"They didn’t even come into the building to announce themselves," said Ms. Castley in respect of Wednesday’s bizarre encounter. "Don’t get me wrong, I love trees and I think it’s a wonderful idea. But I just don’t understand the placement. All they had to do was walk into the building and talk to me about it."

The principal had her custodian call 911 in a fruitless effort to get the Johnnies Appleseed to knock it off.

But even better, City Councilman James Oddo happened to be visiting the school that day to address a fifth-grade law-and-government class.

Oddo reached out to the city Sustainability office, which is handling the initiative to plant a million trees throughout New York City, expressing his frustration. He managed to garner an apology — but no guarantee that the four budding trees would be moved.

"In certain site conditions such as this one, where there is perpendicular parking and an open lawn area, we are recommending that trees sit back from the curb as a best practice both to protect them from car damage as well as allow for roots to expand into additional lawn space," Morgan Monaco, director of Parks’ MillionTreesNYC, wrote in a letter to Oddo. "Trees survive better and grow into larger trees when given adequate space for root growth and expansion."

But Ms. Castley said she is concerned for the students’ safety.

PS 54 participates in a stop-and-drop program, in which parents pull up to the front of the school in their cars and quickly drop off their children, who are met by a school staff members or parent volunteer, then drive off.

Once the child is on school grounds, the principal encourages them — especially the younger ones — to stay against the fence so they’re not too close to the road in the event a car skips the curb.

"I tell them, ‘Hug the fence,’" she said. "You want to make sure the children are not in the line of traffic. You know how everybody’s in a rush in the morning."